A chancellor’s challenge: In Daily News forums, Carmen Fariña displays experience and knowledge galore, but her plans may not be bold enough to answer parents' urgent need for better schools

Jessica Franco Ramos of Bushwick has a daughter who's excelling at a public charter school — and a younger brother struggling at a traditional district school. Derrick Calder, of the South Bronx, pulled his daughter Jodie out of a public school, IS 318, where fights filled the halls and bullying was rampant. In a Catholic school, she found refuge at a cost of $4,000 a year.

Celia Velasquez, a Bronx grandmother, was thrilled to discover that her grandson aced the gifted and talented test — earning admission, at least in theory, to a local program that would challenge him. But District 7, the city's lowest-performing district, has none. She sends the young boy to a school 40 minutes away.

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Those were among the stories parents, teachers and others shared at town hall-style forums sponsored by the Daily News and Metro IAF, a coalition of 118 congregations, schools and neighborhood groups. The gatherings were inspired by The News' sweeping "Fight for Their Future" series published in March.

For a total of three hours, schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña listened and responded in exchanges that brought vividly to life the desperation for better schooling that many parents share — as well as Fariña's dedication to improving performance.

The sense of the audiences, totaling more than 900 people, seemed to be an appreciation, which is shared by the Daily News, that Fariña had engaged on the issues, as well as an understanding of her plea for patience — up to a very limited point.

The chancellor has more than a half-century's experience as a teacher, principal, superintendent and deputy chancellor. She seeks to spread her philosophy of educational change across a system of 1.1 million students.

To her credit, she vows to get all kids reading at grade level by the end of second grade — and emphasizes the importance of phonics instruction.

To her credit, she has focused on a crisis in middle-schools — and sought to prepare kids for kindergarten by expanding access to quality pre-K.

Stacy Roger-Gordon (Barry Williams/for New York Daily News)

To her credit, she defends the use of student test-score data in evaluating instructors and speaks bluntly about the need to remove teachers and school leaders who aren't up to the job.

Unfortunately, she defends state laws that protect the jobs of even the worst educators.

Unfortunately, she defends a cap on the number of city charter schools — even though 50,000 young people are on waiting lists.

Unfortunately, she is hesitant to shut schools that have failed year after year, hoping instead that elaborate interventions will work magic.

Some strategies she outlined at the forum, like holding principals accountable and improving teaching through better training, crashed into the hard classroom realities of right now.

Wendy Peters attended PS 305 in Bedford-Stuyvesant as a child, graduating as valedictorian. When it came time to send her own son there, she found disorder and low expectations. Now she tutors children from the school — and encounters rampant failure.

"Isn't 16 years a reasonable amount of time for underperforming schools to receive the proper assistance they need or to be restructured and/or closed?" she pleaded.

Stacy Roger-Gordon heard from a principal that her daughter was the student of most concern in all of fourth grade. Yet for a full school year, Roger-Gordon couldn't get a meeting to work out the girl's Individualized Educational Program — the plan that the system owes each of the 175,000 students with disabilities.

Leton Hall teaches at a school in the South Bronx with kids who live in homeless shelters, have parents in jail and face other challenges. The school has one counselor for more than 450 kids.

Will Fariña rush help to schools with the deepest needs?

Hope Baker, a Lower East Side parent, says that, like thousands of other kids, her children attend a school with no gym.

Will Fariña devise solutions to give every kid access to quality physical education? She doubted that space would be available.

Parents across the city want to see her deliver. Not after another class of underprepared seniors graduates. Not after thousands more kids can't find quality schools in their neighborhood. Not tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. Today.